Cheap and easy solutions to online marketing issues.

Make it easy to socialize your website

By now, we all know that social media is the place where most companies are now focusing their efforts. That means that your website needs to be equipped for social sharing. Attention is the currency of the internet, and you can’t get attention without word of mouth.

Image 1 – Puma’s social sharing

In image one, you can see how Puma all0ws you to socially share their products, encouraging you to post the image on Pinterest, to “Like” it and to Tweet about it. This allows the customer to share things that they are passionate about. Puma is not scared of you using their copyrighted images on Pinterest, they are encouraging it. That’s because they will reach a much bigger audience through social sharing than they ever could through traditional advertising. What’s more, the message is more trustworthy because it is coming from one of your Facebook or Pinterest friends.

While clothing is a great product for social sharing, this can be applied to many types of businesses. At your next brainstorming session, have a discussion about what items on your website would be good targets for social sharing. I’d be interested to hear the results.

Another great item for social sharing is news. If you put any type of news on your site – press releases, articles, blog posts, whatever – make sure it has social sharing functions attached. Not only will this share your content, but it will also allow you to track the sharing via Google Analytics. Keeping track of which items generate a lot of shares can give you a better idea of what appeals to your readers. This is what you call Actionable Analytics.

Image 2 – This news article from Stanford University encourages social sharing.

In image two, you can see some social sharing links, which you should incorporate into any type of “news” that you put out.

(A side note: I’m of the opinion that you should put out news as much as possible. Anything that happens at your company. Cast a wide net, see what people like, and then start crafting your messages to meet the audience’s tastes.)

Showing the number of Tweets and Likes helps encourage sharing by showing the reader that others are doing it. Adding your page to StumbleUpon will also help people find you (more on StumbleUpon in the future!).

What items on your website have you made sharable? What website items are you thinking about adding social sharing to? Please let me know in the comments below!